BASC-3 BESS Behavioural and Emotional Screening System

Brief, universal screening system for measuring behavioural and emotional strengths and weaknesses in children and adolescents.

Assessing the behavioural and emotional functioning of children and adolescents can be an effective tool in promoting student success. Academic problems, along with problems associated with developing and maintaining positive relationships with others, can be the result of underlying behavioural and emotional deficits that, when caught early, can be corrected before negatively affecting a child or adolescent.

The BASC-3 Behavioural and Emotional Screening System offers a reliable, quick, and systematic way to determine behavioural and emotional strengths and weaknesses of children and adolescents in preschool to 18 years 11 months. This comprehensive screening system consists of brief forms that can be completed by teachers, parents, or students, providing one of the most comprehensive and efficient tools available today.

Using this tool

The BASC-3 Behavioural and Emotional Screening System is designed for use by schools, mental health clinics, paediatric clinics, communities, and researchers to screen for a variety of behavioural and emotional disorders that can lead to adjustment problems.

The system includes three forms, which can be used individually or in any combination:

• Teacher form with two levels: Preschool (for ages 3 through 5) and Child/Adolescent (for Grades K through 12)
• Student self-report form with one level: Child/Adolescent (for Grades 3 through 12)
• Parent form with two levels: Preschool (for ages 3 through 5) and Child/Adolescent (for Grades K through 12)

Each form ranges from 25 to 30 items, requires no formal training for the raters, and is easy to complete, taking only 5-10 minutes of administration time. Parents or students who have difficulty reading may complete the forms by listening to audio recordings on compact disc.

Features and Benefits

The BASC-3 Behavioural and Emotional Screening System offers a number of valuable features, including:

• Assessment of a wide array of behaviours that represent both behavioural problems and strengths, including internalising problems, externalising problems, school problems, and adaptive skills.
• Forms that can be completed in approximately five minutes or less, without the need for specialised training.
• A single Total Score on the report that is a reliable and accurate predictor of a broad range of behavioural, emotional and academic problems
• Validity indexes that identify responses that may be overly negative or inconsistent.